I Remember Larry...
by Leftomaniac
Summary: Nny's always been crazy... but what pushed him over the edge?


Okay, I know for a FACT I was not smoking crack when I came up with this idea, but even I have my suspicions. Sure, improbable combinations have been made in songfics before but... JtHM and Wierd Al Yankovic? You just HAVE to be under the influance of SOMEthing illegal for that. Maybe grandma slipped something into my coffee.. well anyway, I don't own JtHM or 'I Remember Larry' They belong to 'Wierd Al' Yankovic and Jhonen Vasquez, though not neccisarily in that order. I don't own Beetlejuice either!  
  
Look, Nny may *seem* sorta ooc, but try to keep in mind, part of this fic is supposed to take place BEFORE he becomes the same Nny we all know and love. Oooh, and I feel so guilty about portraying him like that. Oh WHY did I read Apricot the Gerbils's annoucement?:c)  
  
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Nny flopped down on his sofa, exhausted. He had been out of his house for... he didn't know how long. It could've been a million years, for all he knew. He wondered if he should get a clock or a calander, but then he realized he'd just forget to set or update it. Time was immaterial anyway. He reached between the coushins and pulled out a tattered journal. /Dear Die-ary,/ he wrote, /Time is an illusion, simply a way of marking ripples in a concept that the sheep of the world cannot comprehend as a whole. Attempting to track it is futile, and ultimatly arbitrary and couterproductive./ He paused, contemplativly at this. /Cheese-Nips are good though,/ he added, /So cheesy and orange and tangy. Everything pure and decent in the world can be traced back to Cheese-Nips. Try it! Cheese-Nips.../  
  
He was surprised as his surroundings abruptly changed. The couch he was sitting on transformed to a hard, concrete step. He was now outdoors, and it was no longer night. And that wasn't all, the whole world seemed to have changed! The trees seemed taller, the ground was closer... Nny realized the world had remained the same, but he had shrunk. Everything seemed dreamlike and unreal. Suddenly it hit him. "Memories..." he thought, "I'm remembering..."  
  
Say, do you remember that guy Larry next door?  
Well, he always was the neighborhood clown  
  
Seven-year-old Johnny, (not yet known as Nny) sat watching the other children. Even at such a tender age he was different. Not as different as he would grow to be, of course, but he was certainly outcasted. Already for someone his age he was abnormally tall and thin. He saw the boys wrestle and the girls paint thier nails. Why, he wondered, did they immitate those older than them so rapturously? It wasn't as if older people respected them for it, and they missed out on so many freedoms of childhood. Well, it made them feel better about themselves. Better they use those nauseating boy bands as role models than him as a punching bag. Though he knew their taunts were just a way of unloading thier nurousies on him, he couldn't help but feel inadequate as a result. They all thought he was so bad, so wrong... maybe they were right. He fell into one of his depressive modes.   
  
They were all cruel, but they all let up eventually. All except.... "HEY JHONNNNNIE!" A high-pitched voice shattered his musings. Larry.  
  
Like the time he pulled my pants off  
And he took those color pictures  
And posted copies all over town  
  
Larry waddled up to the stoop where Johnny sat. Three years older, almost half an inch taller, and a thousand times more muscular than Johnny, he was quite intimidating to the little guy. Takeing a long, wet sniff, Larry grinned down at his constant victem, who was averting his gaze. As if that would save him. He sniffed again and let a loogie fly onto the perfectly trimmed grass surrounding Johnny's house. "Hey there Noodle Boy!" He sneered in his grating nasal voice.  
  
Or the time that he dumped toxic waste on my lawn  
Or those wacky prank phone calls  
from midnight till dawn  
  
Little Johnny C didn't look up. He mentally pictured a hole in the ground opening up and swallowing Larry. Or better still, Larry being fed to a threasher. He could picture exactly the comical expresion of horror and pain on his face. "Hey faggot, I'm talking to you! Look at me when I talk to you Noodle." Johnny raised his eyes to his tormentor. He looked him bravely in the eye. "My name is not 'Noodle.'" he said bravely, though he was fighting the urge to cringe away from the blows he knew would soon come, "Or 'Faggot'. It's Johnny." He mentally congradulated himself on his statement. He'd be beaten up either way, why not at least stand up for himself a little? He really didn't want to turn into one of those submissive dorks who folded at the first sign of conflict. The older boy grinned down malevolently, wearing a sadistic expression that would cross the face of Johnny many times in his later years.  
  
What a crazy kid Larry was, always foolin' around  
  
"'Myyy nyame issssin't noooodle'" he mimicked whinily, "Issss Jyyyyyyyyonny.' Turdface. You're a whiney little turdface fag, that's what you are." He declared. Johnny felt tears well up, as usual, but this time, his hands clenched, and his expression grew angry, not sad. How dare he? How could he treat someone like that? Did he think he could get away with it? Johnny wished someone would teach him a lesson...  
  
Boy, what a joker  
What a funny, funny guy  
I'll never forget about Larry  
No matter how I try  
  
"You know what happens to whiney turds like you, don't you Noodle?" Larry asked condecendingly. Poor Johnny just glared up at him. He felt angrier than he ever had before. He pictured Larry being slashed in two, as he often did. But this time it was no disembodied hand that attacked Larry, but his own. He wanted to feel the resistance as his weapon entered Larry's fat gut, to hear the crack of his bones. He didn't just want Larry dead, *he* wanted to kill him.  
  
Suddenly, the feeling passed, leaving Johnny limp and shaken. He forgot about the precence of his own personal demon for an instant, and, trembling, looked around.   
  
Say do you remember when I lost all my hair  
'Cause Lar gave me that Nair shampoo  
And hey, how 'bout the day he put Ben Gay  
inside my jockstrap  
And filled my toothpaste tube up with glue  
  
Larry noticed Johnny's quite obvious shakings, and his malicious grin grew wider. "Yeah, you know what happenes to whiney little noodle boys. Whiney little pants-wetting noodle boys like you." I haven't wet myself once, Johnny thought, How many times a week do YOU change your sheets? But he kept silent.  
  
All those wedgies he gave,  
All those shoe strings he tied  
  
Despite Johnny's brief glimpse of his future, that encounter ended as it always did. With him bruised and bloodied hanging by his underwear from a tree branch with a jury of his peers standing around him, laughing, not one of them offering help. Sore, damaged, humiliated, Johnny's blood boiled.  
  
All those brownies he made with the Ex-lax inside  
Oh Lar, I swear, it was a laugh a minute with you  
  
The jeering mass of children did not let up until the elastic band the supported Johnny snapped, sending him, as it always did, plummeting to the ground. At that, the preeten collection drifted away, like clockwork, not knowing or caring if he was seriously injured.   
  
You know I couldn't help but laugh  
Even though he treated me like slime  
  
Days after that particular occurance found Johnny on his front stoop again, staring adoringly at an object in his hands. It was beautiful. A casual observer might find it quite mundane, but he treasured it. It was a simple, grey, toy car. Hand-made, carved out of wood by his father in a rare and unbridled expression of love. From it's unremarkable domed roof to it's perfectly circular glass 'headlights', there was not a thing about it Johnny would change. If he lived forever he would never throw it away. He was so entrancecd with it's percieved beauty he didn't hear Larry's footsteps behind him.   
  
Remember when he cut my car in half?  
Well, he really got me good that time!  
  
Even the scrape of the axe, (taken without permission, no doubt) on the sidewalk did not unnerve him. Only when he felt the air in front of him part and shatter as messily as his beloved toy did seconds later did he fully become aware of the other boy's precencee. He stared in total shock, unable to feel anything but shock yet. How could someone, even Larry, be so callus, so cruel? This couldn't be real. "Happy birthday Noodle!" Larry sneered, "Hope you like *my* present!"  
  
Laughing, dragging the ridiculusly oversized weapon behind him, Larry ran off. Johnnny watched him, expressionless. Somewhere in his mind, something was shifting. Neurons twisted and writhed, inhibbitions fell away, and the world took on a fractured perspective. His eyes glazed over. Slowly, almost spasm-like, a wide, unnerving grin spread across his face...  
  
Say, do you remember  
When I broke in Larry's house  
Late at night and tied his mouth with a rag?  
  
The glass shattered inward, creating a sound halfway between a crash and an explosion, sending bloody shards everywhere. Larry's parents were both sleeping with 'prince Valium' and remained undistubed. Larry's scream was quickly muffled by his own pillow, which was quickly replaced with an oily rag that Johnny's dad used when fixing the car. "Hey there Lar." Johnny whispered.  
  
Then I dragged him by his ankles  
To the middle of the forest  
And stuffed him in a big plastic bag  
  
Some hours later, a sticklike silouhette dragged a garbage bag filled with what remained of Larry across the horizon. Covered in cuts and bloodstains, panting and laughing insanely, Johnny entered the dark, secluded forest preserve. He deposited the body in the wet earth, and flopped on the ground, panting and exhausted. He went home and back to bed, but he didn't sleep.  
  
If the cops ever find him,   
Who knows what they'd say?  
But I'm sure if old Lar   
Were still with us today  
He would have to agree with me  
It was a pretty good gag!  
  
Little Johnny was never quite the same after Larry's funeral. Some people suspected it was becuase one of his little 'playmates' dissapeired so suddenly. Others thought it had something to do with the wave of murders that swept the town shortly thereafter. Still, he was such a sweet, creative child, he had so MANY imginary friends...  
  
Boy, what a joker  
What a funny, funny guy  
I'll never forget about Larry  
No matter how I try  
No matter how I try  
No matter how I try  
  
Nny's head shot up. He was back in his house, but he didn't remember how he got there. Slowly his mind peiced itself together. Reality slowly seeped in. Fuck, he thought. Memories are almost as bad as sleep. He rubbed his eyes and realized he'd be crying. Memories and emotions, fuck, fuck, fuck and angry words. He was so awake now. The events that just passed through his mind were fading but the impressions remained. He decided to go for a walk, kill a televangelist, that'd make him feel normal...  
  
Oh, I remember Larry...  
  
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Geez, a JtHM fic without an OUNCE of humor, next thing you know I'll be running around saying how much I love the violence in it! 


End file.
